


The Birth of a Weeping Iblis

by ThePinkMug



Series: PersonaX [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Devil, Gen, Hurt, Original Fiction, Persona Reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 07:02:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18823534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePinkMug/pseuds/ThePinkMug
Summary: For PersonaX: Shima's origin story.Amanojaku awakens.





	The Birth of a Weeping Iblis

**Author's Note:**

> This story was made as a part of a submission in a persona-based Role-playing group.
> 
> Glossary:  
> Iblis: the demon in Arabic.  
> Credo: faith, belief, a confession of faith  
> Amanojaku: a small red demon in Japanese Mythology believed to whispers taunt into people ears and trick them into committing sin.  
> Hannya: female demon mask in Japanese traditional mask theatre or noh. Its face may appear angry or crying depending on the light and angle from which it's seen.

  
\---

It had been the third day since the last time he had a blink of sleep, yet today was still not the day he could finally get one. The straight jacket felt tight and choking around him. He rolled on the padded floor, his breath laboured, his jaw hardened, he growled like a wounded lion. From the corner of his eyes, he could see something bolted and crashed against the padded wall, tearing the already torn pads and sent scraps of cotton flying around the room.

He was consumed with wrath and rage, but above all, despair. The monster had brought it all out, things he had bottled up and hide, and now he gave in to it. There were screams and sounds of things breaking in his head; he saw men, big and sturdy they were, hitting on a crying woman.

So where was he again? Ah, right. He wanted to kill them all.

***

The day before, 2.55 a.m.,  
Shimamura opened the door and entered a room equipped with only a table and two chairs. A standing fan buzzed faintly at the corner of the room,bluish white light blared from above them, and a camera was taped on the corner of the ceiling, its eyes staring right to where he would sit. On one of the chair sat a man; his long black hair tied up in a bun.

“Professor,” the boy, perhaps barely eighteen was his age, bowed before he took a sit on the other chair. There was a clock on the wall, its hands ticking ever so slowly. Tick, tock, as if it was saying. The sound echoed through the room.

The assessor handed Shimamura a paper folder. He received it in silence. It has been his third day here and every time it was the same procedure again and again; he would look at several photos and read several articles, and all of them will make his stomach stir and his heart strain in stress.

“Destruction is a good thing to do,” the scientist promptly said as Shimamura began to sort through the attached photographs. He winced at one of them. “It saves people, and you have the power within you to do so.”

Shimamura nodded. He stared at one of the photographs closely. He doubted it, that credo, but at the same time, he believed it. He had had enough of crying to sleep night by night. He had had enough seeing his sisters getting beaten up and raped. They are just the same old stories repeated over, and all over again.

The clock struck three. Shimamura looked up and around. He could see the room turned bluish and the light dispersed, rippling through the air as if they were underwater. He was used to it, but it still felt strange to him. Whether it was real or it was just his imagination, he did not know, and he did not care, nor he felt any need to ask anyone about it. He simply had to keep silent and be good. Be good and everything would be alright.

But you do know you are no good.

The boy felt something dropped in his stomach and his breath stuck in his throat. That voice again. He looked around warily. The owner of that taunting cackle must be close now. The voice was no longer a hissing whisper like it was every other night.

Shimamura looked down and saw one of the photographs again. It was a picture of a woman, her face was blurred but he could see mixture of purple and red, bruises and blood all over her.

“I want to save them,” he thought.

You do not. You can not.

The lad jerked his head up.

You are weak and you can not do anything.

“I can!” Shimamura rose from his seat. His chair fell back with a loud thump. The assessor looked up in surprise. He kept his eyes on Shimamura closely, his hand signing to the camera.

You tried. You failed.

“I can!” the lad bellowed. He buried his face in his palm. “I can save them all. My mother, my sisters, all those people. I can save them!”

You can not, you do not. You do not want to save, you want to destroy. You hate. You do not love.

“I have to be good.”

You have never been good.

“It is alright. Destruction can save people,” the assessor suddenly said rather carefully. “You can save people. You have the power.”

The air distorted and a silhouette emerged. His eyes glowed gold like amber, his face took the appearance of the now whimpering young lad. Slowly the figure leaned in and hugged the young man from behind.

You were good, but they keep on hitting. You tried to be an angel, they trampled on you so you hated them, but angel never hates, do they? Devils do.

Tears started to trickle down the young man’s cheek. Images of people came and went away, each of them was so clear to his eyes, so clear they all tore open fresh invisible wound inside him. He fell down. The other person who looked like him pulled his hand away so they now come face to face.

You and I. We can destroy them.

“I want to save them,” he tried weakly. The amber eyes person cackled.

Oh you will. You will. You don’t have to do it by your own hand. You will lead them. They will destroy everyone for you.

Shimamura’s eyes widened. Right, he thought. Right, he can save them and destroy his enemies at the same time. Destruction can save people, so this was what they meant by it! He thought. It is salvation indeed. He will save those who were trampled, he will give them power and they will, together with him, go to hell. He's a devil after all.

Would it? But he was weak and he could not do anything. He had no power he could not even fight or hit those who mock him. All he needed to do was to shut up and stomach everything. He was not a good person, he never was, but he tried, despite all the anger and the hate. He tried, he tried, he tried. He was a good boy, stories says the good win, but why couldn’t he?

“But the evil always suffers and lost,” he said.

He felt something dying inside him. Something that had been trying to pull him away from that person with amber eyes, who was now cupping his face with his cold, surreal hand.

Ahh, yes, they always do that, so that all they call evil stay quiet and do nothing. They were afraid of the devils, that why he was made ugly and weak. It was all out of fear.

Wasn't it?

Shimamura went quiet. His mind grew blank. All noises and fear in his head had now died down, leaving him with nothing but a sense of defeat and desperation, and anger, perhaps. He listened to the shadow.

“If I become the devil, will I be able to save them?” He asked.

You will.

“Then I shall be one.”

The shadow went quiet for a second before it started guffawing. He pushed the lad down so he lied on the floor and caught his jaw, forcing it open as he began to morph. The other person, now a mere blackish shape, forced himself into Shimamura’s throat, further and further down. The lad gasped and struggled, but a force bigger than him pinned him down on all four. He had no choice but to swallow everything down to its tail.

The lad rolled and coughed. He wanted to vomit but nothing came out. Something was bubbling inside him. Fury. A desire to kill. An uncontrollable anger so big and consuming it was, that his entire body started to feel like it was burning.

He crawled, then his body folded onto itself. A figure started to emerge from his back. It glowed menacingly red before morphing into a childlike figure. It swayed violently, then without warning it leapt to the wall. It landed with a crashing sound, and a monstrous crack formed on the plaster wall.

Shimamura growled. He caught sight of the assessor, who was looking at him in both awe and horror. The lad charged forward. He caught the man’s neck and started throttling him.

The door to the laboratory slammed open and a few people barged in to pull Shimamura free from the assessor. The poor man coughed; the youngster struggled to break free as he bellowed high-pitched scream to kill. His eyes now glowed amber-like.

The monster borne out of him now had fully transformed into an otherworldly creature, a demon about one meter in height, its face covered in hannya mask, its skin red like skinless flesh, its feet were those of a goat. It wore white traditional burial clothes, which length did not even cover its entire feet. As if mimicking its owner cry it went on a full rampage across the room.

The demon suddenly caught the assessor on his head and stabbed him with his small clawed hands, then pull out what seemed to be a white glowing substance and shoved it into his mouth. He started devouring it out. Loud gasps sounded and in panic, one of the people stabbed Shimamura with sedative, rendering him unconscious.

The assessor fell down unmoving. The white substance came back into him and the demon vanished, leaving behind an eerie silence hanging in the air.

***

A small room with two messed up futons and pulled out drawers. Laundries hanging on the ceiling, dishes piling on the small, dirty kitchen counter. A few people gathered near the door; red and blue light flashing through the uncurtained window.

“Why are you taking my mother away?” A teenager, perhaps thirteen was his age, asked a rather dark-skinned man dressed in police uniform. They were standing in the middle of the room

The man lowered himself and said. “I’m sorry honey, but we have to do it. She did something wrong.”

“My mother did nothing wrong,” the kid replied. “There are more bad people who did a lot more bad things.”

“We will take them all too,” the police promised.

***

The same boy, now older, was sitting down on a bright pink sofa in an equally psychedelic coloured room. In his hand was a much older woman, sobbing her heart out as he quietly stroke and pat her on the back. Both of their faces were bruised.

It had been something he did nearly every day. Some people will leave the room of the brothel satisfied but when he came in to clean stuff up, someone else was sobbing on the bed. He would comfort them. The next day would be another case, and so would be the next, next day.

***

Shimamura closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He crawled with his feet and his body to the corner of the room to curl up. It’s his third night purging all the anger without even stopping, resting only for a few hours when the sun was up. When the sun rose the devil would vanish and he would be left alone with his thought. When the clock struck three, it would start all over again.

He knew he had to calm down. Every morning he would see the amount of damage the little devil had done the night before and he would be in awe. He was very well aware that his anger had caused it all if only he could have it controlled! He knew something kept on talking inside his head. They were arguing, fighting, debating between themselves, but they all agreed on one thing; they all resolute to destroy.

But whom? He asked himself.

Then he remembered all the people who took away his mother and hurt his sisters. All the men with uniform and suit. They were big, they would throw money on the table for him to count. Too many people to count, too many blurry faces to remember.

“So we’re dragging them all to hell,” he muttered, “I guess some people just want to see the world burn.”

He went to sleep on the corner of the room after his dinner. It was lavish but he had no appetite to eat anything, even his favourite food. He ended up barely touching any of them. When the sea rose he knew what would happen and he's all ready for it. This time, he said, he would take the rein.

The clock struck three and the room turned bluish, just like how it was the day before. Shimamura jolted awake. He could feel anger bubbling in his chest but this time it was different. This time he could see all those faces he hated. This time he didn't let the anger take over him. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, then imagined his anger like a weapon, something he could hold, like a sword. He imagined himself slashing all those people with that sword.

Slowly but sure he could see that little devil standing in the middle of the room in his head.

The creature crawled to squat in front of Shimamura. The lad raised his head and they looked into each other eyes, the sad boy and the devil, one and the same person, two different figures.

“Amanojaku,” he muttered. His eyes glowing amber, “So this is who I am. A devil.”

“Fine,” he chuckled, “I guess God has abandoned me.”

A single tear trickled down his cheek. A streak of light fell on top of the little devil’s face; the _Hannya_ appeared crying.

\--end--

 


End file.
